3. Publicity For Clubs

Mon, 03/05/2010 - 12:23 — Jon Diamond

Few Go clubs could survive without publicity. Every member of a club
was once not a member, found about about the club somehow, and joined. If
you want your club to survive, you will need to recruit new members.

Publicity for Go clubs can be directed at people who know the game but
are unaware of the existence of the club, and at those who have never heard
of Go but like other games. The former is easier to do, and more productive
of new members. The latter is more in the interest of the "Go community" as a
whole, as it adds to the community; it should only be attempted if your club
is happy to explain the rules to newcomers.

The easiest and most effective way is via a web site. Many people find out
about Go, and later about their local clubs, through the internet. It is
therefore important for a club to have an up-to-date website, or at least an up-to-date BGA Club Listing, which should
state reliably and accurately where and when the club meets.

The site should state whether the club is open to visitors. Most clubs are,
but it is still important to reassure potential visitors by saying so. It
should also state whether the club welcomes those who are new to Go. Many
clubs welcome people who want to learn about the game, and have members who
are happy to teach them: these should say so on their web site. There are a
few clubs which do not welcome beginners: these benefit nobody by pretending
otherwise.

It helps greatly if you give not just an address for your meeting place, but
instructions for getting there, and a map. It is easy to link to a map using
Google maps,
multimap or
streetmap.

If no-one in your club has space in which to host a web site, the BGA provides
ample free space for club pages: just send the webmaster an email containing the
page that you want hosted, preferably in html. If no-one in the club can even
generate html, send him the content you want put on the page, in some electronic
format (a text file will do) so that he can convert it easily.

Posters can be obtained free from the BGA Secretary, and be displayed in a workplace or school. Alternatively you can print them yourself and incorporate your own messages. Most effectively, they can be displayed in a university or technical college, since students often take to Go quickly and spread the game amongst themselves.

Most local libraries are willing to keep a supply of leaflets about local clubs.
We recommend printing some of these and giving them to your library, to hand out
to people who ask about local games clubs. These leaflets should give details of
the club, say a little about the game, and give the URL of the club web site. It
helps if they can give the actual times and place of club meetings, rather than
a telephone number to obtain these details – some people are shy of making
such a call to a stranger, but willing to attend a meeting in a public place.

You should also provide the library with copies of the trifold leaflet, which is an
introduction to Go and to the BGA and also has a space to include your own information. It is available from the
BGA secretary.

You should go along once or twice a year to check that they still have a stock of
your leaflets, and replenish them if they have run out.

Many libraries also have a database of local clubs, which the public can access.
You should make sure your club is on this. It is a very easy and fairly effective
way to find new members.

The Play Go booklet isn't suitable for publicity purposes, but may be useful in face-to-face encounters.

Games shops may allow the free display of a card giving a clubs details (as for
leaflets for the local library). This is a good way to advertise to people who
already know of Go, or are keen to learn about it. Notices in the windows of
other kinds of shop are unlikely to achieve anything.

While you are in a games shop to put up your card, have a look at the other
cards there. If there is say a chess club or a war games club, it might be a
good idea to contact them and mention the existence of your Go club.

There is a section below on Go clubs within
universities. If your club is not a university club, but is in
a city with a university, this is likely to be your most promising
recruiting ground. Find out whether the university has a Go club. If
it has, contact its organisers and tell them about your club. Its
stronger players may be willing to visit your club as well, so as to
play some new opponents. If the university has no Go club, try to
find a way to advertise your club within the university.

All publicity for a club should state clearly and reliably where and when
the club meets. If it is not possible to predict these, because details of
meetings are only decided close to the time, publicity can instead give the
URL of the club's web site, so long as this is kept thoroughly up to date.
A club which states publicly where and when it meets is in a much better
position to attract new members than one which requires potential visitors
to ring up in advance – some people are willing to drop in on a club
to see how they feel about it, but are shy of making a phone call, which
implies more commitment than they may be willing to give.

Finally, a good way to spread Go is to talk about the game – many
people who would ignore other publicity try out the game because a friend
of a friend plays Go.

3.1 Publicity for New or Expanding Go Clubs

A new club that wants to attract more members, or a club that has recently
expanded to larger and publicly accessible premises, should use any or all
of the methods listed above. Also, it is encouarged to contact the BGA
Membership Secretary to for details of any unattached members already in
the area who can be invited to join.

3.2 Publicity for University Go Clubs

University students are much more receptive to the idea of joining a Go club
than are members of the general public. So setting up a Go club, or publicising
an existing Go club, within a university has a very good chance of success.

It is easier to keep beginners keen on go if they have other beginners of the
same standard to play against. Partly for this reason, and partly to make
teaching easier, it is a good idea to try to recruit a large number of beginners
at the same time, and the best way to do this is to run widely publicised
open evenings once a year, preferably near the start of the academic year.
You might also manage an open evening near the start of each term, to encourage
new players to appear in a bunch rather then spread throughout the term.

The best way to attract new members, and publicise the open evening, is through
the Freshers' Fair at the start of each academic year. Contact the students'
union at the beginning of the summer to get details of the Freshers' Fair.
There will usually be a small charge for this, but it can be worth it in terms
of the numbers of people who then come to the open evening. The vital thing
about an open evening is that it should be widely advertised.

Deliberate raids on the chess and bridge clubs are good, as they have the great
advantage of concentrating on people known to enjoy playing competitive games
in clubs. There may also be groups which meet to play other games such as
Dungeons and Dragons or Othello which can be raided in the same manner.
When "raiding" a club, you should get the approval of the club's organisers,
and above all, take care not to disparage their game. You may believe that Go
is a better game than tiddlywinks, and you may even be right; but you will do
yourself no good at all by saying so to members of the tiddlywinks club. Rather,
you should point out that many people enjoy both games, and invite them to
organise a reciprocal raid.

When it comes to actually running the open evening, it is important to spend as
little time as you can manage teaching the rules, and to get people to play as
many games as possible reasonably quickly (chess players in particular have a
tendency to spend far too long thinking in their first few games) and only
using 9×9 boards. You may need a good number of helpers for this, as many
as one teacher per two pupils, so that every game can be observed. Photocopied
small boards will do, but look a bit tacky.
Section 4 gives advice on teaching beginners.